The Wheel of Time is one of the most beloved fantasy sagas of all time. Over the course of 14 books, author Robert Jordan's tale of a young farm boy and his friends fighting the forces of darkness enthralled readers, selling more than 100 million copies around the globe. But the tale of how these books were made is almost as epic as the story of Rand al'Thor itself. In 2007, Jordan passed away from a rare blood disease; at the time he had only written 11 mainline Wheel of Time books and a prequel, leaving the future of the series very much in doubt.
Enter Brandon Sanderson, the hyper-prolific author behind such series as Mistborn, The Stormlight Archive, Skyward, and more. Sanderson was hand-picked by Robert Jordan's widow and editor Harriet McDougal to finish the series. Before his death, Jordan asked McDougal to find someone to finish his books, which Sanderson says she considered Jordan's "dying request." She eventually chose Sanderson, who went on to pen the final three novels in the series: The Gathering Storm, Towers of Midnight, and A Memory of Light, bringing the story to a fitting close.
Sanderson has talked at length before about how he landed the gig for finishing The Wheel of Time, but in a recent interview with author and podcaster Tim Ferriss, he also revealed something I'd never heard before: the name of another famous fantasy author who was nearly chosen to finish the series instead: A Song of Ice and Fire writer and Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin.
The entire three-hour interview is very much worth a watch, but The Wheel of Time chat begins at around the 2 hour 27 minute mark. Sanderson recalls how Jordan asked his wife to find a worthy successor to finish off his magnum opus once it became clear he wouldn't live long enough to see it done himself. At the time, Sanderson was a young writer; he'd only published three books, and while his first, Elantris, sold reasonably well, his second, Mistborn was struggling. (His third was a children's book with a different publisher.) He was far from the obvious choice to take on such a gargantuan project as The Wheel of Time.
"This is before I've blown up; I blew up on Mistborn 2," Sanderson recalled. "[The publisher] still thought I was maybe going to be a failure as a writer." However, he was a long-time fan of The Wheel of Time, and when Jordan died he wrote a moving eulogy on his blog. This eulogy eventually found its way to McDougal.
"Mistborn had been floundering, my name was not mentioned [for finishing The Wheel of Time]," Sanderson said. "But somebody that day, her name was Elise Matheson and I'm very thankful to her, was printing off things on the internet, nice things that people had said about Robert Jordan. And she printed off my thing, and she put it in the stack. And that night, Harriet read it."
The eulogy resonated with McDougal, who Sanderson said was particularly taken with the final line memorializing Jordan: "You go quietly, but leave us trembling." The eloquence of the eulogy, combined with Sanderson's openness about how much Jordan had influenced his own writing, caused McDougal to reach out to Tom Doherty, the head of Tor Books (the publisher behind The Wheel of Time), to see if Sanderson was a viable option for finishing the series.
It's then that the story takes an unexpected turn, as Sanderson reveals Doherty was particularly interested in the prospect of Sanderson finishing The Wheel of Time since his own novels were also published by Tor Books...unlike the other author in the running.
George R.R. Martin was almost chosen to finish The Wheel of Time
"[Tom Doherty] was super excited it was one of his authors she was asking about. 'Cause a lot of the names that came up were not his authors," Sanderson explained. "The main one that kept coming up was George Martin, because he and Robert Jordan were friends. Well, George was already behind on his books in 2007, and the publishing industry would not stand for him taking someone else's book series."
Doherty sent McDougal a copy of Mistborn, but before she had even read it she decided to call Sanderson to make sure he would even be interested in tackling The Wheel of Time in the first place. Needless to say, Sanderson was very interested; enough that he says he was rendered practically speechless on the initial call, a rarity for the chatty author.
Sanderson also talked about what sealed the deal for him. "I always use this Venn Diagram...of pretty good sci-fi/fantasy writers, and pretty big Robert Jordan fans. There are bigger Robert Jordan fans out there than me, hardcore, by far. There are better writers than me, right? Terry Pratchett, I always call the greatest writer of my generation. There are amazing writers. George is a fantastic writer. I would probably rank George as the greatest living sci-fi/fantasy writer. There's Jane Yolen, who's just incredible."
"But if you put that Venn Diagram together there's not a lot of people in the middle there, who are pretty big Robert Jordan fans, and I think, pretty excellent sci-fi/fantasy writers. And that was me. And so I realized I want it to be me because if it doesn't go to me, it might go to someone who's a good writer but doesn't know the books."
Sanderson made this pitch to McDougal, emailing her after their initial call to let her know of his interest in finishing the series. McDougal didn't sign on right away, saying there were some names she was still considering for the project. "It was me or George, I later found out," Sanderson revealed.
According to Sanderson, McDougal's mind was already pretty made up by that point. "When she tells this story, she says 'there was really only one, it was Brandon.' She knew by then she couldn't have George."
McDougal took a month to read Mistborn and think about enlisting Sanderson's help in finishing The Wheel of Time, while Sanderson went on tour promoting his second Mistborn book, The Well of Ascension. "I went on tour not knowing if I was going to finish The Wheel of Time, and not being able to tell anybody," Sanderson said. Thankfully, McDougal called him in the middle of the tour to inform of her choice, so he wasn't left hanging. "I didn't have to wait that long...it was pretty excruciating. It was probably only like two weeks."
What would The Wheel of Time have been like if George R.R. Martin wrote the final books?
As interesting as it is to ponder what the end of The Wheel of Time might have been like if George R.R. Martin had written it instead of Sanderson, I feel pretty confident that the McDougal made the right decision. Martin's writing style has always leaned a little darker than Robert Jordan's. Sanderson leans in the other direction, with a somewhat lighter tone that is a little closer to Jordan's own. I don't know that Martin would have been a great fit for the series.
And all that's aside from the fact that Martin is still working on finishing his own long-overdue book series A Song of Ice and Fire. If he also had The Wheel of Time on his plate, we would probably still be waiting to see how the series ends. I think we can all agree that's not what anyone would have wanted. This is an instance where Sanderson's dogged work ethic was an enormous asset, as fans didn't need to wait too long to see the work of Robert Jordan's successor — and the end of the journey for Rand al'Thor and his companions.
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